India conducts one million COVID-19 tests in the last 24 hours

New Delhi [India], Aug 22 : India has crossed a crucial milestone in the fight against COVID-19 by testing more than 10 lakh people in a single day, said the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Saturday.
"In the last 24 hours, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has conducted 1 million tests with 10,23,836 tests done on Thursday. India has achieved its resolve to test 10 lakh samples daily. With this achievement, the cumulative tests are more than 3.4 crores (3,44, 91, 073)," said Dr Lokesh Sharma, Scientist-E at ICMR.
The number of daily tests has been increasing in a steep climb. Average daily tests during the past three weeks also strongly depict the progress made in the enhancement of COVID-19 tests across the country, said the official.
Owing to aggressive testing in states and UTs, there is a commensurate decline in the positivity rate.
"Although a higher number of tests will initially lead to a rise in the positivity rate, it will eventually lower when combined with other measures such as prompt isolation, efficient tracking, and time effective and clinical management," the official said.
"Combined with enhanced testing, policy decisions of the Centre and the States/UTs have facilitated easy testing across the country. This has boosted the daily testing capacity," he added.
So far, the country has a strong network of 1,511 labs comprising 983 labs in the government sector and 528 private labs.